Results of a flight experiment on the catalytic efficiency of the Space Shuttle heat shield

Supporting flight data analysis for Space Shuttle Orbiter Experiments at NASA Ames Research Center

“…Figure 14, taken from Ref. 13, compares the DFI data with the TGH heat-trans f er analysis; the two agree favorably.…”

Emissivity and catalycity measurements on SiC-coated carbon fibre reinforced silicon carbide composite

“…Since recombination processes are exothermic (498 kJ released per mole of O 2 formed, 945 kJ per mole of N 2 , and 415 kJ per mole of NO), 31,32 part of the released energy is transferred to the surface of TPSs with the consequent increasing of their temperature. [33][34][35][36][37] Therefore, high emissivity (above 0.7) and low surface catalycity (recombination coefficient's values below 0.1) greatly improve the material performance in re-entry conditions, by reducing temperature gradients and thermal stresses in the structure, thus enabling the re-entry vehicle to operate under higher heat flux conditions. A reliable experimental evaluation of these parameters is required to feed aero-convective heating computations that, in absence of experimental data, have to rely on extremely conservative theoretical values.…”

Legacy of the Space Shuttle From an Aerodynamic and Aerothermodynamic Perspective

“…Special catalytic coatings were flown on select tiles during the OFT program to evaluate the difference between the coated tiles, which were strongly catalytic, and the nominal tiles which were shown to be weakly catalytic. 12,13,14,15,16 …”